She's a Knockout!

by L. A. Jennings

  In the Depression-era United States and Europe, women wrestlers were a source of entertainment for many working-class people. These wrestlers were doubly marginalized because of their gender and economic position. In her impressive book Sporting Females: Critical Issues in the History and Sociology of Women’s Sports, Jennifer Hargreaves recognizes that the women who participated in the “low-life” sports of wrestling and boxing were “ignored by the ideologues of female sports” because they did not conform to the bourgeoisie attitude regarding female athletes.[5] Ideally, female athletes were middle class to upper class, white, and conventionally pretty. These women only participated in sports like tennis, golf, and badminton, which were appropriate for their natural sex. Wrestling and boxing were not only too violent for women, they were considered damaging to the female physique. Yet, boxing proliferated in sports and popular culture at the turn of the century.

  Boxing

  Thomas Edison famously produced a short film in 1901, featuring two female boxers. It was a precursor of the forthcoming film industry and is still considered one of Edison’s great productions. In this picture, currently available through the Library of Congress, sisters Bessie and Minnie Gordon touch gloves and engage in lively sparring sessions, while wearing thick, knee-length dresses with short sleeves. The sisters display fancy footwork, although their hands are a bit wilder than our current conception of the sweet science. The Gordon sisters are therefore well-documented in their pugilistic endeavors, but not all boxers from that time period can provide evidence of their prowess in the ring. And in an age where notoriety became synonymous with fame, some people claimed to have extensive careers in fighting, although no one can prove this to be true. In most cases, the truth probably lies somewhere in between.

  Polly Burns: Female Boxing Champion?

  The story of Polly Burns, also known as Polly Fairclough, circulated in the late 1990s, after the release of the documentary My Grandmother Was a Boxer, produced by Polly’s great-granddaughter, Catherine Morley. Burns is often cited as one of the first female boxing champions, although as we have seen, that is not the case (see Elizabeth Wilkinson Stokes). In fact, much of the information we have regarding Burns and her boxing career is uncorroborated. This does not mean that she was not a boxer, but simply that she did not enter the records at the time. Many people argue that Burns’s exclusion is due to shoddy record keeping and a lack of recognition for female practitioners in the art of boxing. Nonetheless, this book demonstrates that records of female boxers, even prior to the twentieth century, do indeed exist.

  Much of the information about Burns’s boxing career comes from her descendants, who point to articles that have either been permanently lost or perhaps exist in someone’s personal collection, unavailable to academic databases and search engines. Most articles about the fighter use Morley’s documentary as the primary source, which is currently unavailable for viewing. Those who have seen the film, which aired in 1999, on the Irish television network RTE, have admitted being disappointed by the lack of hard evidence of Burns’s fighting days.[6] One of her grandsons, who was unaware that Morley was related to his grandmother, tried to contact the filmmaker but was unable to establish any connection to his supposed cousin or her production team. He believed this was because the filmmakers assumed he might try to discredit the documentary.[7] This family turmoil does not necessarily indicate that Burns was not a boxer. Indeed, her grandchildren grew up hearing about her boxing career. But it is difficult to believe that there would not have been any articles written about her exploits given the popularity of boxing at the time, the sensationalism of female fighters in the media, and the rumor of her most famous fight, which would have created a media storm.

  In her documentary, Morley asserts that Burns once fought an exhibition match in Dublin against the world heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson. This feat, if nothing else, should have made headlines. In 1916, a match between Helen Hildreth and John Atkinson at a gymnasium received media attention, as well as police interference. The 103-pound Hildreth boxed the 105-pound Atkinson for two rounds. As the Washington Post delightfully describes, Hildreth threw a “succession of jabs, hooks, swings, uppercuts, and straight punches” that “materially changed the general ensemble of Mr. Atkinson’s features before the first round ended.”[8] The fight continued for another round, and Hildreth had Atkinson against the ropes when the police broke in and stopped the fight.

  The bout took place at a gymnasium in front of a crowd and warranted a respectably detailed story in the newspaper. The idea that a fight between Burns and the famous Johnson would not have been featured in the news media seems unlikely. In fact, the only news story about Burns prior to the 1990s was her death notice in 1959.[9] The obituary is exceedingly colorful, with stories about her early life as a circus performer who at the ages of six and eight wrestled lions and sadly saw her trapeze artist mother fall to her death. Burns supposedly knocked her future husband out when she was sixteen years old and then went on to the infamous Johnson match. While the story is delightful and reads suspiciously like a fairy tale, Burns’s life as a boxer, especially as one who sparred with Jack Johnson, remains unsubstantiated.

  Burns was not the only elderly woman to assert that she had fought a famous male boxer in her youth. In 1989, the Milwaukee Journal published the story of a woman named Hessie Donahue, who claimed to have knocked out John L. Sullivan in 1892, during a boxing exhibition.[10] According to Donahue, during an exhibition match, Sullivan hit her a little too hard, and in anger, Hessie nailed him on the jaw with a strong right hand. Donahue claimed that Sullivan was out for almost a minute. The two remained friends after the event because they always believed that the knockout was an accident. While this story, like the one told by Polly Burns, has no documentation, it is a fun narrative, even if it may be amplified and a bit distorted by time.

  As for Burns, even the documentary’s producer, Adrian Lynch, admitted that the story is more legend than fact, but that does not make it any less interesting; however, there were numerous female fighters of the era whose experiences are substantiated through contemporary media coverage and who also deserve the attention afforded to the fascinating Polly Burns.

  Girls Boxing Grows

  The late nineteenth-century trend of boxing schools for girls continued in the United States, and, in 1908, twelve-year-old Frances Moyer made headlines when she bested her female cohorts, along with four boys, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.[11] While boxing schools may have become respectable for chic young women in New York City seeking fun and diversion through exercise, this particular fight occurred in a vacant lot rather than a gymnasium. Moyer began her day by besting a thirteen-year-old girl, and she then fought four boys in a row, beating them before finishing the standard six rounds. Her last match, against Clarence Moser, was considered a draw, and it was the only bout that went the entire six rounds.

  The following year, the Boston Globe featured the story of ten-year-old Ruth Townsend, a tough little girl who could defend herself when necessary.[12] Townsend learned to box from her father, who wanted her to be able to take care of herself. She was strong and able to lift more than two hundred pounds, and to the paper, she looked a “picture of health and beauty.”[13] But she also had a tough side; after a neighborhood boy bigger than her stole her ball, Townsend knocked him out on her father’s advice. Mr. Townsend told her never to seek out a fight, but that she should teach boys to mind their own business and leave her alone. There is no doubt that Ruth, a musician and budding scholar, prevented any further theft or teasing through her father’s pugilistic instruction. News reports treat Moyer and Townsend with respect and a bit of admiration, not any type of disgust.

  During this period, stories of plucky and adventurous women proliferated, especially in the days preceding the exploits of Amelia Earhart and other female progressives. By 1915, female boxers were so widely accepted that 1,400 women at Tulane Seminary gathered to watch a two-night female boxing event in N
ew Orleans.[14] The first night featured a three-round boxing match between Miss McDonald of Mississippi and Miss Kline of Louisiana. The latter won by decision and earned honors for her home state. The following night included the bout for the 133-pound championship of Mississippi and Louisiana, between Miss Stevens of Louisiana and Miss Coleman of Mississippi. The only man allowed in the room of nearly 1,500 spectators was the referee, which was probably because the women boxed while wearing only bloomers. The location of the fights, a religious university, reveals the acceptance of female boxers in the early twentieth century. But the most shocking aspect of the event was the prevalence of betting; spectators bet candy and gloves on the fight results.[15]

  Some society women sponsored boxing and wrestling events to raise money for charity, although these events always featured male fighters.[16] Although female fighters were excluded from the performances, the women behind the benefits fought in their own way. Prizefighting was still unlawful in many parts of the United States, so bouts were held on boats to avoid police interference. Boxing was met with disgust by many people well into the twentieth century. In the United States, Mrs. Victoria Booth Demarest, evangelist and writer of more than one hundred hymns, declared her disgust with the new female athlete, whom she described as “steel-muscled, flat-breasted women” and “channel-swimming, marathon-running Amazons.”[17] Demarest may have believed that exercise would make women appear masculine, but that argument was beginning to lose credence as health specialists began advocating for women to exercise.

  Britain’s Discomfort with Female Boxing

  Boxing in early twentieth-century Britain was not as widely accepted as it had been one hundred years prior. Perhaps the vestiges of Queen Victoria’s prudish reign remained firmly embedded in the culture, or it may have been that the ravages of World War I left Britain and the continent disinterested in violence as sport. Boxing certainly did not disappear, but it did seem to lose the popularity it had gained during the late nineteenth century’s “Cult of Manliness.”

  There are accounts of several proposed boxing matches between women in the 1920s, including one featuring Annie Newton, the niece of boxing “professor” Andrew Newton. In 1926, a championship match between Annie and Miss Madge Baker was cancelled one week before the fight was scheduled to take place due to extreme pressure from the general public and the home secretary.[18] Understandably, Newton and Baker were disappointed because they felt there was nothing shameful about the entertainment they intended to provide. The promoter of the event was also upset because he wanted to showcase Newton’s skill and set up an exhibition for her to spar three male lightweights.[19]

  The Daily Mail issued an editorial haranguing women’s boxing and expressing gratitude that society had not fallen to the lowest level of decency by allowing the match between Newton and Baker to take place.[20] The editorial argues that women’s sports were a sign of decadence in an amoral, post–World War I England that had lost all sense of decorum. The paper neglected to remember the more than two hundred years of female pugilistic history in England and instead claims that not only were women’s bodies incapable of handling the rigors of boxing, but that they had no place in the sport. The Daily Mail continues on its soapbox and declares that the very soul of England was at stake in such a match. Nevertheless the paper graciously admits that women do have some place in sports, although only as spectators.

  The Yorkshire Cricket Club considered revoking the right for women to watch cricket matches, and the Daily Mail congratulates them on continuing to allow women to occupy a seat, especially since the women were genuinely interested in the game. In addition, the paper notes that allowing women to purchase seats for cricket games greatly increased the revenue for the club, making the inclusion of women a profitable venture for the patriarchal establishment.

  Fighting on the European Continent

  At the turn of the century, the French art of savate returned to popularity. Savate, dubbed “boxing with the feet” by the American news media, is French kickboxing. In the history of fighting sports, strict boxing, with hands only, was the primary striking style in the Western world; however, prior to the Queensbury rules, and even after their implementation in some less formal venues, boxing matches would often include strikes to the legs and feet, kicks of all types, and even throws and wrestling. The specific style of kickboxing, as it is known today, did not come into being until the 1970s. Prior to that, numerous cultures had fighting styles that featured punching and kicking, from Muay Thai to San Shou to savate, but kickboxing arguably did not truly gain recognition as a separate sport until Bruce Lee entered the popular lexicon in film in the 1970s.

  The popularity of savate in the early twentieth century was rooted in nationalism, something that the French needed at the time. Parisians began to engage in exhibitions of savate at the turn of the century, including the infamous 1902 match between Britain’s Jenny Pinkham and France’s Mariette Augagneur, who defeated the former by a particularly vicious kick to the stomach, which left poor Pinkham spitting up blood.[21] The strict rules of boxing seemed to be no match for the kicks of savate. In the following years, more women made headlines in France. Twelve young women gave a demonstration of savate at a private club. Another French woman defeated several men using her savate techniques. Savate, however, remained a fringe fighting sport, located primarily in France, compared to the dominant art of boxing. But the more traditional sports of boxing and wrestling would see a number of changes and advances in the twentieth century, especially for women.

  In 1926, the home secretary in Ireland denounced a proposed bout between two women, claiming that although he could not officially stop a sparring match (which was lawful because it did not include a prize), he hoped that the “influence of decent public opinion [would] prevent such an outrage from taking place.”[22] By that time, boxing had become an international sensation amongst women, and not just because of the calorie-burning potential. Undoubtedly, nearly every country already had some form of fighting art taking place as a sport.

  But the sport of boxing, as governed by the Queensbury rules and popularized by such fighters as John L. Sullivan, became increasingly practiced by women in countries like France, Ireland, and Mexico.[23] Mademoiselle Gouraud, niece of the famous French general, made headlines when she knocked out an opponent in 1918.[24] She was known for wearing trousers and reportedly having been the only woman to serve in the French army. Estonian Anette Busch wrestled in Russian troupes and even entered the seemingly impenetrable world of Japanese sumo wrestling in the 1920s.[25] Defeating her male opponents on a regular basis, Busch became a goddess in Japanese culture and was highly sought after in wrestling shows in Japan and throughout the world.

  American Boxing Legends

  Not all the women involved in boxing fought in the ring. Belle Martell was the first woman to act as a referee in the United States. In addition, Martell was also a boxing coach in Los Angeles and a radio sportscaster.[26] Radio brought sports into the home and helped increase awareness of the sport in the United States. Martell hosted a show on KLAC Hollywood three times a week, during which she promoted the sport of boxing and interviewed former and current champion fighters, including wrestlers. In 1929, she married a former boxer who opened his own gym, where she would eventually train and teach. Five years later, she acquired a license to promote boxing in California, and after a few years, she announced, kept time, and finally refereed in 1940. When Martell took the test to become an official boxing referee, she received a 97.5 percent score, two and a half percentage points higher than any male applicant that year.

  In spite of this, not everyone in the boxing community supported her quest to become a referee. According to Martell, it was the male sports journalists who “ganged up” on her and convinced the state commission to change their regulatory practices, making it impossible for her to referee fights, even though the commission could not revoke her well-earned license. She circumvented this unfair treatment by
refereeing events in her own boxing clubs. She also used her position as a local sportscasting celebrity to support the war efforts through the sale of war bonds, earning a Silver Medal from the U.S. Treasury Department. Martell regularly brought her boxing and wrestling champion friends with her to visit hospitals for paraplegics, presumably men injured in the war. Her charity, in addition to her status as the first female boxing referee, established her reputation as a champion of fighting sports during the twentieth century.

  Countess Jeanne La Marr

  Jeanne La Marr had an exciting and tumultuous life, during which she received two titles: countess and welterweight female boxing champion.[27] She claimed she married an Italian count in 1914, although there is no evidence of the union. A 1936 article identifies La Marr as a French woman who participated in a three-round exhibition match with Herbert “Baby” Stribling. Per the news story, La Marr “swore her mission in life was to place the women of the world on a level with men—by proving her right to be known as the world’s champion lady fighter.”[28] The fight, however, was more comedic than a serious display of skill.

  La Marr’s second was a comedian named Michelena who goofed off in her corner by “accidently” catching his fingers in her hair and imitating her opponent’s corner by rubbing her legs. La Marr kicked him in the teeth and later bashed him over the head with a stool when he attempted to douse her with water and wipe off her chest with a towel—a standard practice for male fighters but insulting for this lady boxer. The “Countess” may have indeed been successful against female fighters, but in this instance, she apparently tried to have her opponent arrested for striking a woman when he tapped her on the nose with his glove.[29]